UBC’s Dropbike is in operation at the Point Grey campus. You can see the bright orange and white bikes rolling by here and there.

It’s a newer generation of bike-share tech that doesn’t require a fixed dock. The security, electronics and communications are self-contained. The bikes are meant to be dropped at existing racks, or at specified drop zones around the campus.

A few pix from a rapidly-growing event: HUB’s Bike the Night. Aside from being highly social and fun, it’s a way to introduce people to riding outside their comfort zone. Families, goofy hats and blinking bikes make it all the more fun.

The sponsor list is impressive: MEC; Translink; LaFarge; Richards, Buell, Sutton; YVR Airport Authority; and many more. From this, you can get an impression of big community support for people riding bikes. The attendees alone could go a long way towards putting bike-friendly candidates into the Mayor’s office and city council in the upcoming 2018 Vancouver civic election.

After a Vancouver civic election mayoral candidates meeting, we have a much clearer picture of where some candidates fall on the pro-bike spectrum.

The meeting was hosted by the Shaughnessy Heights Property Owners’ Association.

Good old bike lanes raised an emotionally-charged anti-bike audience response among the invitees from Shaughnessy Heights. As usual, this showed how the very concept of the bicycle as a legitimate mode of transportation is threatening to those with a deeply entrenched motordom-at-any-cost worldview. And so provides now-rancid red meat for cynical politicians to throw to this shrinking base.

Vancouver is a city with a world-wide reputation for rising mode share for transportation by bicycle and by walking.

More people continue to realize that walking or taking a bike is the easiest and best choice for some of their trips. The person and the city get major health improvement as strong side effects, and this weighs in political decisions. And Greenways are part of the plan.

Here’s a proposal for the East Van City Greenway, which will join infrastructure like the Central Valley Greenway, 10th Avenue, Union/Adanac and others. However, it will focus on north-east Vancouver, extending the reach of Greenway infrastructure to yet another part of the city.

The proposal is in the form of a motion sponsored by Mayor Robertson and Councillor Reimer, now on the agenda for the July 10 council meeting, starting at 0930.

The north-east part of Vancouver currently has cycling mode share of 8-13%, and walking 17-29%, despite infrastructure being limited. A Greenway would likely increase mode share for both, and promote healthy living through active transportation and increased opportunity for social interaction.